After a week of announcements from critics and awards groups, as well as plenty of other developments, THR's awards analyst tries to make sense of the Oscar race.

Every week through the Oscars on Feb. 24, The Hollywood Reporter's awards analyst Scott Feinberg will release a new "Feinberg Forecast," a post in which he recaps the most noteworthy awards-related news of the past week and shares his latest assessment of the standings in each of the major awards categories. (For more information about Feinberg and how he arrives at his projections, as well as a key to the various colors and acronyms that appear throughout them, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Critics/awards groups began announcing their year-end awards during the past week. We heard from theNew York Film Critics Circleon Dec. 3, the National Board of Review on Dec. 5, theLos Angeles Film Critics Association, theBoston Society of Film Criticsand theNew York Film Critics Onlineon Dec. 9 and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Associationand the American Film Institute on Dec. 10. (The Broadcast Film Critics Association will announce its nominations Dec. 11.) As I previouslywrote, Academy members already knew to seriously consider Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) for the best actor Oscar before NYFCC, BSFC, NYFCO and DCAC gave him their awards in that category and Austria's Amour for the best foreign-language film Oscar before the NYFCC, NBR, NYFCO and DCAC named it as their pick. But how many had on their radar veteran character actress Ann Dowd (Compliance) for best supporting actress before NBR awarded her their prize in that category? Or Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea) for best actress before NYFCC singled her out? Or Dwight Henry (Beasts of the Southern Wild) for best supporting actor before LAFCA heralded him? Probably not many. Also, several other contenders that already were regarded as serious contenders before these groups chimed in but probably will be taken more seriously now that they have: NBR's best actor pick Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook); 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), who was voted best actress by LAFCA (in a tie with Silver Linings Playbook's Jennifer Lawrence) BSFC and NYFCO; and especially Zero Dark Thirty and its director Kathryn Bigelow, the best film and best director choices, respectively, of the NYFCC, NBR, BSFC, NYFC and DCAC.

On Dec. 7, best documentary Oscar hopeful Searching for Sugar Man wasthe big winnerat the International Documentary Association's IDA Awards. The Sony Pictures Classics film won the organization's awards for best documentary feature and best music. Another film that made the best documentary Oscar shortlist of 15, from which five nominees ultimately will be selected, is How to Survive a Plague, for which director David France was honored with the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award.

On Dec. 8, the Santa Barbara International Film Festivalhonored De Niro, a best supporting actor Oscar hopeful for Silver Linings, with its Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film, a career achievement honor that it presents at a special dinner each year several weeks before the festival itself gets underway. At the event, which is attended by festival sponsors and local Academy members like Carol Burnett, De Niro was toasted by his Silver Linings writer-director Russell and his Limitless (2011) and Silver Linings co-star Cooper. Then Douglas himself, on the eve of his 96th birthday, presented him with the award, saying, "Robert De Niro never played a character; he became a character."

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.) don't agree on much, butin a letterthey sent to their Senate colleagues Dec. 6, the duo announced that they had jointly decided to screen the best picture Oscar hopeful Lincoln in the Capitol Visitors Center Auditorium at 5 p.m. Dec. 19, after which a Q&A will be held with the film's director Steven Spielberg, lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis, producer Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter Tony Kushner, as well as historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book Team of Rivals inspired the film. Reid and McConnell wrote, "We believe that viewing this film would provide all senators with a positive opportunity to gather and reflect during this holiday season." (Reid first saw the film at its Nov. 15 screening for President Obama at the White House.)

I have confirmed that The Weinstein Co. will be pushing Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) in the best supporting actor Oscar category along with his co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio (who won NBR's best supporting actor award) and Samuel L. Jackson. This is a reversal of Weinstein's previously announced decision to push Waltz in the best actor Oscar category along with co-star Jamie Foxx. Although both male acting categories are highly competitive this year, this decision seems to me to be a tacit acknowledgment that Weinstein feels that Foxx is a stronger contender in his category than DiCaprio and/or Jackson are in theirs, since whichever category features multiple contenders from the film is the one that is more likely to produce no nominees due to vote-splitting.

Meanwhile, Django best supporting actress Oscar hopeful Kerry Washington, a bit of a long-shot for her largely nonverbal performance, might have won over a few Academy voters with her remarks at THR's Women in Entertainment breakfast Dec. 5. She spoke about the importance of THR’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program mentoring program, which pairs underprivileged girls from inner-city Los Angeles with a high-powered female Hollywood power broker and arranges for them to meet for one afternoon every week for a year.

The legendary Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola, who for years hoped to direct a film version of On the Road but ultimately served as an executive producer on Walter Salles' version that has played the festival circuit this year and will be released this month, hosted a special screening of the film in Los Angeles on Dec. 6. Afterward, Coppola was joined by Salles and the film's best supporting actor Oscar hopeful Garrett Hedlund, best supporting actress Oscar hopeful Kristen Stewart and best original score Oscar hopeful Gustavo Santaolalla at a reception in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont. Stewart's boyfriend Robert Pattinson also attended.

Best actor Oscar hopeful Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables) was the subject of a segment on the Dec. 9 episode of 60 Minutes, which is heavily watched by the same demographic that composes the majority of the Academy. During the segment, Jackman described Jean Valjean, the part that he plays in the film, as the "role of a lifetime."

On Dec. 4, Time magazinedeclaredthat Cloud Atlas is the single worst movie of 2012. Reporter Mary Pols writes that the film "is so much like the bong-fueled conversations I had in college that I almost ordered a Domino’s pizza afterward." That seems a tad harsh, considering that Battleship and John Carter also were released this year. (Thanks a lot, Taylor Kitsch!)

The Palm Springs International Film Festival revealed the recipients of several of the awards that it will present during its 24th installment. At its Jan. 5 awards ceremony, best actor Oscar hopeful Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) will receive the Desert Palm Achievement Award for Acting, which previously has been presented to Jeff Bridges, Daniel Day-Lewis, Colin Firth, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and John Travolta, among others; the cast of Argo will receive the Ensemble Performance Award, which has been presented to the casts of such films as Babel and The Social Network; and best supporting actress Oscar hopeful Sally Field (Lincoln), whowill receivethe Career Achievement Award, which has previously been presented to Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren, among others. They join previously announced honorees Naomi Watts, Helen Hunt and Robert Zemeckis.

Despite the fact that Universal's best picture Oscar hopeful Les Miserables has played through the roof at virtually every screening since it was unveiled Nov. 23, it experienced a bit of a backlash this past week. On top of Zero Dark Thirty essentially stealing its thunder as the most exciting new film, several high-profile critics -- includingTHR'sTodd McCarthyandFilm.com'sStephanie Zacharek-- issued largely negative reviews of it, which has broughtits favorability ratingon RottenTomatoes.com down to a rather average 77%. While that number still might improve, it's perhaps worth noting that only two films in the past 20 years won the best picture Oscar despite a RottenTomatoes.com rating that low: Forrest Gump (1994), at 71%, and Crash (2005), at 76%.

Contenders' names are followed, when appropriate, by acronyms of the major awards groups (see below) that have already named them winners (in orange) or nominees (in purple). Some nominations are still pending (they appear in italics).

ACE = 63rd Eddie Awards (TBA)

AFI = 13th American Film Institute Awards (TBA)

ADG = 17th Art Directors Guild Awards (TBA)

ASC = 27th American Society of Cinematographers Awards (TBA)

BAFTA = 66th British Academy Film Awards (TBA)

BFCA = 18th Critics' Choice Awards (TBA)

BSFC = 33rd Boston Society of Film Critics Awards (Dec. 9, 2012)

CAS = 49th Cinema Audio Society Awards (TBA)

CDG = 15th Costume Design Guild Awards (TBA)

DCAC = 11th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Awards (Dec. 10, 2012)

DGA = 65th Directors Guild of America Awards (TBA)

HFPA = 70th Golden Globe Awards (TBA)

IAFA = 40th Annie Awards (TBA)

LAFCA = 38th Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (TBA)

MPSE = 60th Golden Reel Awards (TBA)

NBR = 84th National Board of Review Awards (TBA)

NSFC = 47th National Society of Film Critics Awards (TBA)

NYFCC = 78th New York Film Critics Circle Awards (TBA)

NYFCO = 12th New York Film Critics Online Awards (Dec. 9, 2012)

PGA = 24th Producers Guild of America Awards (TBA)

SAG = 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards (TBA)

USC = 25th USC Scripter Awards (TBA)

VES = 11th Visual Effects Society Awards (TBA)

WGA = 65th Writers Guild of America Awards (TBA)

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ABOUT SCOTT FEINBERG AND THE "FEINBERG FORECAST"

Scott Feinberg is one of the film industry's most trusted awards analysts and has one of the world's best track records at forecasting the Oscars, something that he has been doing since 2001. His best showings came in 2006 (when he correctly called 21 of 24 winners) and 2004 (when he correctly called 20 of 24 winners). He was the only pundit to project long-shot best picture nominations for The Reader (2008), The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011).

Scott factors into his projections personal impressions (based on advance screenings at festivals or elsewhere), publicly available information (release dates, genres, talent rosters and teasers/trailers often offer valuable clues), historical considerations (comparing and contrasting how other films with similar pedigrees have resonated with the Academy), precursor awards (some awards groups have better track records than others of correlating with the Academy) and regular conversations with industry insiders (including fellow members of the press, awards strategists, filmmakers and voters).